Writer Guide

• Border — Surrounds each cell of the table with a border. This
border can be modified or deleted later.
The AutoFormat button opens a dialog from where it is possible to
select one of the many predefined table layouts. See “Automatic
formatting of tables” on page 321 for more information.
After making your choices, click OK. Writer creates a table as wide as
the text area (from the left page margin to the right page margin), with
all columns the same width and all rows the same height. You can then
adjust the columns and rows later to suit your needs.
Tip
To directly insert a table with the default properties, click on the
little arrow next to the Table icon on the Standard toolbar. A
graphic appears where you can choose the table’s size (rows and
columns). To create the table, click on the cell that you want to
be on the last row of the last column. Holding down the mouse
button over the Table icon will also display the graphic.
Creating nested tables
You can create tables within tables, nested to a depth only limited by
imagination and practicality. Figure 271 demonstrates a simple, two-
level example.
To achieve this, simply click in a cell of an existing table and use any of
the methods mentioned in “Inserting a new table” above.
Figure 271: Nested table example. The
shaded table is nested in a cell of the larger
table.
Using AutoCorrect to create a table
You can also create a table by typing a series of hyphens (-) or tabs
separated by plus signs. Use the plus signs to indicate column dividers,
while hyphens and tabs are used to indicate the width of a column.
For example, this character sequence:
+-----------------+---------------+------+
300 OpenOffice.org 3 Writer Guide